The Land of Venn - Numeric Storms

The quirky illustrations and character voices are delightful for both kids and adults. With 30 increasingly difficult levels that adapt based on performance, kids will be challenged as they work to earn three stars and unlock each world. Through gameplay, kids practice and build fluency with basic addition facts, which lays the foundation for more advanced mathematics in later years. The game's quirky narrator repeats the sum, helping to reinforce the math facts. Kids also learn to strategize by using magic potions and spells that they can purchase by building up points.

The game mechanics in the first Land of Venn app (Geometric Defense) were a perfect fit for the learning objectives; there, kids had to draw lines and shapes to zap the monsters, which paired the abstract geometry vocabulary (“triangle,” “open shape,” etc.) with concrete representations that kids drew themselves. Here, the same game mechanics are used for fact fluency practice, which, as a learning objective, isn’t about conceptual learning -- it’s about memorization. A valuable skill for moving on to more advanced math, for sure, but not one that is particularly deep. In addition, this time around, it’s sometimes a struggle to finger-draw a connection between the numbers with all of the other interactive graphics on the screen. Kids might get frustrated if they know their math facts but are unable to beat a level because of this.